Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 vs Amazon Fire HDX 8.9: Tablet Battle

In almost all of my comparison reviews, Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 has always been my favorite compared to most flagship devices like Google Nexus 9 or even the iPads.

And that’s not so shocking because, first of all, this Xiaomi device is equipped with the latest and greatest mobile processor from NVIDIA – Tegra K1 processor – and also, it comes with some important elements that cannot be found Nexus 9 or even the iPads, like microSD card slot or full-featured UI.

That’s the reason why today i’m still interested to bring up this Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 in my next comparison review against other competing tablet.

The rival, however, is coming from a company known mostly for its large online retailing website in the world – Amazon.

And given that Xiaomi’s device is still a new-gen device released a few months ago, i think it would be relevant if this comparison review also involved another new-generation tablet from Amazon – Amazon Fire HDX 8.9.

Well, if you’re interested to know more about the entire aspect and especially the gaming performance between 2 devices, then here you go, my comparison review between Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 and Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 (2014 edition).

Introduction

The first time Amazon released the first-generation Kindle Fire tablet, it didn’t become popular straight away.

It took around a year or so for this tablet series to finally manage to be the best selling device on Amazon’s website (in Electronic section).

But that’s quite different with what happened with Xiaomi through its tablet - Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 - in its first debut.

Thanks to Xiaomi’s brilliant hunger marketing strategy (by selling limited amount units of devices in limited time through flash sales every week or so), this company has managed to sell million units of its tablet all across the world (especially in Asia).

If i’m not mistaken, around a few months ago, this company has already shipped around 7 million units of Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 tablets.

The reason why this Chinese-based company has managed to sell million units of its tablet is probably its affordable price tag.

However, despite being an affordable tablet, it doesn’t straightly mean that Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 really sucks in terms of quality and specs.

Well, that’s so wrong. Besides having some of the best hardware specs on today’s tablet market, Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 impressively also excels when it comes to overall quality.

Its display quality looks sharp and gorgeous, its cameras take good quality shots, its software and features are awesome, and its gaming performance is really powerful, even the best on the market to date, especially thanks to Tegra K1 processor inside this tablet – which is made for gaming.

It actually goes the same with Amazon Fire HDX 8.9. As a flagship tablet from Amazon, it’s no brainer that the hardware specs of this tablet should be on par with other high-end tablets on the market, like Samsung GALAXY Tab S 8.4, Google Nexus 9 or even iPad mini Retina 3.

And that’s what happens exactly on this Amazon’s tablet. It has the highest-resolution screen on the market today, a powerful processor and GPU, huge RAM, good quality camera and long lasting battery.

But the questions remain. With all of the high-grade specs and powerful performance found on both devices, which one between Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 and Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 that deserves to be the best gaming tablet in this comparison review?

Which one is a better tablet in the whole aspect?

Is it worth it to buy any of these tablets, especially as a gaming device?

We'll find out more about the answers of these questions at the end of this review. So be sure to read on the rest of this review guys!

Design

In terms of design, Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 may not have the originality compared to Amazon Fire HDX 8.9. It looks really similar with iPad mini Retina and in fact, it looks exactly like an iPad mini, especially with the same size of bezels and aspect ratio.

However, something that should still be appreciated from this tablet is actually its build quality.

Despite using plastic polycarbonate materials, the build quality of Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 is surprisingly good. It feels really sturdy on hands, comfortable to hold and it doesn’t feel as cheap as glossy plastic on other cheap Chinese tablets.

Not to mention, it's also not prone to catch fingerprints, which is really important to keep the device look clean everytime user wants to use it.

Xiaomi Mi Pad

Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 (2014)

On the other hand, Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 actually looks really generic with its sharp looking design. To be perfectly honest, when it comes to design, there’s nothing to write home about on this Amazon tablet.

Okay, it looks solid with its sharp rectangular corners, but there’s just nothing new on this device, especially compared to other Android counterparts out there on the market, which mostly have similar generic looking design.

The good thing is, its front bezels that blend perfectly with the black dark screen, really makes this tablet look elegant. However, on the rear-side, this tablet still looks really cheap especially with its weird shapes all over the place.

Between Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 and Amazon Fire HDX 8.9, of course i will side on Xiaomi’s tablet.

It may look really identical with iPad mini Retina, however, but its solid build quality is actually the one that really impresses me a lot from this device.

It feels really sturdy, solid, comfortable to hold and it’s not prone to catch finger prints.

However, Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 actually is also on the same level in specs, especially with a much higher-resolution 2.5K display, powerful Adreno 420 GPU and longer battery life (thanks to its light-weight UI and software).

Screen

As far as the screen goes, it’s definitely Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 that has a much sharper and better display than the one found on Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9. But it’s not only on paper though, but also in the real world implementation.

In fact, according to display benchmark tests held by some tech sites, the screen of Amazon Fire HDX amazingly manages to top all of the flagship tablets on the market, even the iPads with its “Retina” display.

Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 is equipped with an 8.9-inch display sporting the 2560x1600 pixel resolution (or known as 2.5K display).

On the other hand, Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 is sporting the “Retina” 1536x2048 pixel resolution on its 7.9-inch display. So when it comes to sharpness, it’s no brainer that Amazon’s tablet is the clear winner here.

However, it doesn’t mean that the display of Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 is really mediocre compared to Amazon’s device.

Well, that’s so wrong because with the same exact resolution as today’s iPad, the display of Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 looks really gorgeous and insanely sharp, in fact, it has good viewing angle and great color saturation just like on the iPads.

And this is not so surprising given that the screen of Xiaomi devices – including this tablet – is supplied by Sharp, which also is one of the screen suppliers of Apple devices.

However, if pitted side-by-side against Amazon Fire HDX 8.9, of course, this Xiaomi’s tablet is not nearly as nice looking as the display of Amazon’s tablet.

User Interface

On the software side, both Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 and Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 actually run on the entirely different sides of the road here.

Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 comes with a fully-optimized much heavier UI called MIUI – filled with many useful features and awesome visual presentations -, while Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 is more prominent with its light-weight simplified Android UI, which strips off many of standard features on stock Android UI.

So the UIs of both tablets look and work entirely different.

For me personally, however, i think the MIUI of Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 is more attractive than the Sangria UI found on Amazon’s tablet as it has a lot more features, tasks plus cool visual presentations all over its pre-loaded apps.

And this is the reason why the UI of this device takes a lot of space in the memory/RAM.

But the good thing is, Xiaomi has already tackled that issue perfectly by providing a huge 2GB of RAM on this device, giving more free memory for users in default.

But even so, the Sangria UI of Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 can actually be quite interesting to use, especially for those people who only want to buy the latest contents straight away from Amazon.

It’s really simple to use and it doesn’t really require some complicated learning curve from users. In fact, i believe vast majority of Fire HDX 8.9 users are more than able to understand instantly how to use this tablet even when they first got it out from the box.

So it now depends on you. If you really like to use Android OS and all of its features, then you will feel at home when using Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9.

On the other hand, if you’re only looking for a great and simple-to-use media-consumption tablet for enjoying Amazon contents, then Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 is definitely your destination here.

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Both Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 and Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 are actually great equally for playing games. In fact, these 2 tablets are 2 of the best gaming tablets on the market to date, even alongside latest-gen iPads or Samsung GALAXY Tab S series.

They are more than capable to execute any Android games and even the most graphically demanding titles like GTA San Andreas, Asphalt 8: Airborne or Modern Combat 5, all in buttery smooth performance and even in full highest graphics.

However, between the 2, i think it’s quite obvious that Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 is the one that really stands out here in gaming performance than Amazon Fire HDX 8.9.

And it’s only because it has a staggering 192-core Kepler GPU on it, but this device is also fully supported by many mobile and even console/PC game developers.

And this means, besides great for playing future next-gen Android games, Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 will also be capable to play some console-quality games that are actually ported straight away from console and PC.

In fact, currently there are 3 popular console and PC titles that have been available to play on Tegra K1 tablets like Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 – for example: Trine 2 (PS3), Oddworld Stranger's Wrath and Half Life 2 (PC).

And impressively, these 3 games use the actual graphic and visual effect resource from the original games.

But, this is not so surprising because even according to Epic Engine developers, Tegra K1 processor is capable to deliver the same graphical performance as today’s desktops or PCs.

So basically, you can throw anything from your PC/desktop right away to Tegra K1 hardware and execute them without any problem. This is something that cannot be found on Amazon Fire HDX 8.9.

Even though this Amazon’s tablet is still really powerful with its Snapdragon 805 and Adreno 420 (Qualcomm’s latest and greatest in 2015 actually) and capable to swallow games like GTA San Andreas or Modern Combat 5 in full highest graphics, there’s still no certainty if this device is also able to play some console-quality next-gen games in the future - like Trine 2 (PS3), Oddworld Stranger's Wrath and Half Life 2 (PC).

Not to mention, the fact that Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 doesn’t allow users the access to Google Play Store is also the other reason why the gaming experience of this device is not nearly as good as Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9.

There will be some of your older favorite games that cannot be found on this device, forcing you to find the alternatives for them.

But even so, both Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 and Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 are still great equally for playing games. Their gaming performance are powerful and they’re also capable to handle latest games like GTA San Andreas and Modern Combat 5 in buttery smooth performance and full highest graphics.

And that's probably the most important that matters, at least for now.

Anyway guys, if you want to know more about the gaming performance of Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 and Amazon Fire HDX 8.9, including what games that will run on these tablets, check out my YouTube video playlist or Pinterest page. :)

Cameras

Both Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 and Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 are equipped with 8MP rear-facing cameras. So on paper, these 2 devices are able to take decent quality shots with their cameras.

However, when it comes to quality, i think Xiaomi’s tablet is slightly more superior than Amazon’s slate.

As a matter of fact, i’ve already seen the 720p videos taken with the camera of Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 and they impressively look really sharp and the sound quality is also pretty good and realistic.

Actually, this is not so surprising because the camera sensors of Xiaomi devices – including Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 - are mostly supplied by some respected companies like Sony and Samsung.

And we all know that these 2 tech giants have been really superior with the cameras of their devices, even alongside iPads. So if you’re looking for a great powerful tablet with great camera, then Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 can be added in your hunting list.

You probably can expect the same with the 8MP camera of Amazon Fire HDX 8.9. It may not be able to take as great quality shots as other flagship devices like Samsung GALAXY Tab S or iPads, but at least, it gets the job done.

In fact, the overall quality of photos and videos taken with this tablet is actually not too shabby at all, according to PhoneArena.

Battery Life

Amazon Kindle Fire tablets have been known for its good battery life.

And that’s probably not so shocking especially because this tablet series adopt a really light-weight simplified UI of Android OS. And this really contributes a lot to the use of battery on this device.

It goes the same with the latest-gen Amazon Fire HDX 8.9. Even though there’s no information about the actual battery capacity, according to GSMarena, this tablet is capable to survive around 12 hours in talk time or multimedia.

So basically, you can expect to see this device last in one solid day on a full charge, of course in moderate use.

It goes the same with Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9. Thanks to its pretty huge 6700mAh battery, this has a promised of 11 hours of battery life in talk time and 86 hours in music play.

However, if any of these devices are deployed with some heavy intense tasks without resting the screen at all – like watching HD movies in marathon or playing games in the row -, of course their battery life could drop drastically probably just around 4 to 6 hours the longest, probably less.

But even so, the battery life of these 2 devices can still be considered as good though, especially when knowing that they both are equipped with some power-hungry hardware like high-resolution screen, powerful chipset and GPU, plus heavy UI (i’m talking about MIUI on Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 of course).

My Personal Opinions

So in conclusion, between these 2 tablets, i think it’s pretty hard to determine which one of them that is a better tablet in the whole aspect.

Okay, Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 may have a much sharper and higher-resolution screen than Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9, plus LTE connectivity, however, when it comes to gaming performance, camera, storage expandability and software, i think Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 is more superior than Amazon’s tablet.

But it also doesn’t mean that Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 is mediocre compared to Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 because that is so wrong.

Despite using a light-weight simplified UI, the overall experience of using Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 is actually still good for most of its users.

It’s really easy and simple to use, it doesn’t require some complicated learning curve, it provides an easy access and payment system to Amazon ecosystem and it still has some cool and useful features of Android OS, like app drawer for example.

But of course, if compared side-by-side against Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9, it’s just no-brainer that Xiaomi’s device is a lot better in many ways.

It has full-featured UI, the standard Android design layout that you’ve come to love, better cameras, better gaming performance, external storage availability, better build quality and design, more powerful graphical performance and pretty much about this tablet is just better than Amazon Fire HDX 8.9, of course with the exception of display.

It goes the same with its gaming performance.

As mentioned above, thanks to its quad-core Tegra K1 processor and a staggering 192-core Kepler GPU, this Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 is more than capable to handle not only all Android tablets on the market to date, but also some console-quality next-gen games that are actually ported from console devices or PC - like Trine 2 (PS3), Oddworld Stranger's Wrath and Half Life 2 (PC).

And this is a privilege that you can only find on Tegra K1 devices like Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9.

But even so, Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 with its Snapdragon 805 and Adreno 420 is also extremely powerful for gaming.

It’s able to play Modern Combat 5 and GTA San Andreas in buttery smooth performance and in full highest graphics, but it’s not as powerful as Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9.

So bottom line, if you’re looking for a solid gaming tablet that has great camera, “Retina” display, solid build quality, full-featured UI and good battery life, then Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 is definitely your choice here.

However, if you’re looking for a great media-consumption and even gaming tablet but with simple-to-use UI, then Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 is also a great choice here.

Actually, it’s just a matter of personal preference. if you love simplicity, then Amazon’s tablet is gonna make you satisfied.

But if you are a power gamer and love all the features of Android, then Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 will not disappoint you either.

Disclaimer: Hi guys, bear in mind that this is not some in-depth review. This is Read more...